New Southampton signing, Charlie Austin, has spoken about playing with Theo Walcott and how he’s happy for his former team-mate but wouldn’t change anything about his own career.

Although they haven’t been team-mates since the pair both played for Newbury District u10s, the former QPR man admitted it was special to meet up with Walcott during our clash against his old team.

“Theo was ‘boomph’, straight there! Sixteen and off to Arsenal! It was mad,” said Austin.

“I went my way, but would I change that? No chance. Theo and I played against each other for our schools and then after year 9, he wasn’t allowed to play schools’ football. 

“Southampton must have kiboshed it! I also played cricket against him. Then he stopped doing that too.”

He added, “I was happy for him. I didn’t think I was going to get there. When I was younger I would say to people ‘I played with him, that Theo Walcott’. 

“Then we linked up when I played for QPR against Arsenal in the Premier League. It was great that we were reunited. Growing up seeing him do so well has been a great pleasure.”

Considering it’s been 17 years since they actually played on the same team together, it shows that Austin’s admiration for the forward runs pretty deep if he’s still talking about it. Perhaps he sees what Theo’s doing as a bench mark for himself, since they came from the same place. Or maybe there’s a little envy there, who knows?

It is clear that his admiration is genuine and it’ll be interesting to play against Southampton on the 2nd of February. Hopefully this time is goes a bit better than our trip to St. Mary’s…